Respectable Trade Read online

  “He is a fine gentleman,” Sarah insisted. “He would be perfectly at home in Scott House, I don’t doubt.”

  “I do not share your confidence. But Lord Scott will understand and make allowances.”

  Sarah knew herself to be snubbed but let it pass without comment. Brown closed the front door behind them as Frances started to climb the stairs.

  “You will teach the slaves this afternoon,” Sarah reminded her.

  “I will have a rest and teach them at four o’clock.”

  “I hope you will feel better then,” Sarah said grudgingly. “You have done well today, sister. I do recognize it.”

  Frances nodded and went into her room, closed the door, and leaned back against it. If it had been furnished with a bolt, she would have locked it against her sister-in-law, and against the claustrophobic house, and against the imposing vulgarity of Sir Charles.

  Sarah had not seen that tiny, distasteful caress of his finger on her wrist, and Frances did not know what would have been said. In her world—the world of the country aristocracy—a flirtation after marriage was a normal state of affairs. But in this anxious world of Bristol merchants, where a fortune hung on appearances, Frances did not know how she should behave.

  She had no feelings to guide her. Even as a girl, Frances had never fallen in love. She had watched her cousins’ passing infatuations and agonies at balls and dances and picnics with mild amusement. When they declared that she was cold, she had not denied it. She lacked passion, and the years had made her cool and distant—even from herself. The death of her mother, and then a year later of her father, had taught her that the price of love is vulnerability, and she never wanted to feel the grief of loss again. She thought that all her feelings had died with her father, that she had wept them out of her heart, and that for the rest of her life she would see everything through a thick pane of glass and feel everything as though through gloves.

  Frances rubbed her face, pressing her fingers against her temples where her headache drummed. She lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. In the street outside her window, someone was rolling barrels; the rumble of the wood against the cobbles seemed to shake the very house. She shifted her head on the pillow, seeking comfort but finding none. Then she closed her eyes and slept.

  HER BEDROOM DOOR OPENED, and Brown came in. “Miss Cole said to wake you,” she said apologetically. “She has ordered the slaves up from the cellar. Bates will take them to the parlor when you say.”

  Frances yawned. “I slept.”

  “You’d have been tired out, late last night with Sir Charles at dinner and then lunch with him today.” Brown moved around the room deftly folding laundry and putting it into the drawers, straightening Frances’s silver-backed brush and comb on the ponderous chest of drawers. “Even Miss Cole took a rest, and that’s not a thing which happens often.”

  Frances sat up in bed. “I’ll change my gown,” she decided, glancing down at the creased muslin. Nothing stayed clean in this city. At home she would wear the same gown all the day, but in Bristol the continual drift of smuts and ash covered everything with a fine, dark grit that soiled white linen within hours.

  “There’s the sprigged muslin with a green silk sash; that’s pretty. But rather fine for staying home,” Brown suggested.

  “I’ll wear it,” Frances said.

  Brown shook the gown by the shoulders and spread it out for Frances to see. It was tightly fitted over a silk bodice, with smooth, close-fitting sleeves. The sprig in the white muslin was in the pattern of little flowers, and the green sash was embroidered with matching flowers. It was a dress for springtime, a dress for walking on a warm, well-clipped lawn in the country.

  Frances nodded and stood with her arms out while Brown unhooked her at the back, helped her step from her old gown, and then threw the afternoon gown over her head.

  “Just tie my hair back,” Frances ordered. “I’ll wear it in a knot.”

  “You have such pretty hair,” Brown said. “I could put a little curl in it. There’s the kitchen fire lit; I could have the tongs heated in a moment.”

  “No,” Frances said, reaching for a warm shawl against the chill of the bedroom. She did not want to confide in a servant, but she thought that it was hardly worth curling her hair when there was no one to see her but her sister-in-law and her husband. Mehuru would see her, of course. But Mehuru was hardly interested in whether her hair was curled or straight. For a moment she wondered if he saw her as a woman at all, or only as a slave driver, as an enemy. She hoped very much that he knew she was not his enemy. “Tell Bates to take the slaves to the parlor. We can start at once,” she said.

  She waited while Brown went downstairs, and then she heard the slaves slowly coming up the back stairs from the kitchen. She heard their low, frightened whispers from the hall before she went to the head of the stairs and walked down.

  Mehuru, looking up at the noise of her bedroom door closing behind her, saw her coming down, almost floating, down the stairs, gliding like a ghost in a white mist of a gown. Frances, seeing his face upturned and watching her, paused on the stairs and put her hand to the base of her throat, where her pulse was suddenly thudding. Mehuru saw the color rise into her face and go again, leaving her even whiter than before.

  “Mehuru,” she said.

  “France-sess.”

  She followed them into the parlor and watched them sit in their usual places. She gave them a small smile. “Hello,” she said.

  Their faces were smooth and unchanging, like ebony.

  For once Frances and the slaves were virtually alone. Bates stood at the door holding the whip across him, but he was not listening nor watching. He was a bored sentinel, standing at his post. Miss Cole’s window seat was empty. Frances gazed at Mehuru, disregarding the others. She felt restless and lightheaded. “Mehuru,” she repeated. He looked at her but said nothing.

  She glanced around the room, wondering what she could teach them. She went to the window, took a handful of the curtain material, and showed it to them. “Curtain,” Frances said.

  She looked at Mehuru. “Curtain,” she said again. She nodded at him. “Curtain,” she said more firmly.

  Mehuru suppressed a small, unhappy sigh. “Curt-dane.”

  “That’s right!” Frances said brightly. “Curtain.”

  She tapped on the window. “Window,” she told them.

  “Win-dow.”

  She took her seat at the head of the table and pointed to the back of her chair. “Chair,” she said. They repeated it dully. Then she slapped the table before her.

  “What’s this?” she asked Mehuru. “What’s this?”

  “Table,” he said easily.

  She pointed to the curtain and the window and the chair. He repeated all the names. He had learned them instantly; he did not need a second reminder. He was learning nouns with the facility and speed of a linguist. He had always known a good deal of Portuguese; another European language was not difficult for him. He listened to the orders from John Bates, he eavesdropped while he waited in the kitchen. He was putting together words and meanings all the time. Frances was teaching him single words like a child, while he was stringing together sentences and guessing at their meaning every time he was taken from the cellar.

  Frances rose from her seat and went to the window. He watched her carefully, without seeming to watch her, as a man will watch an animal when he is not certain if it is tame or wild.

  “Come here” she beckoned him. He rose and went carefully toward her, his bare feet silent on the boards and the rugs. She liked to command him. She liked the way he came silently to her side. In all her life, she had been powerless before men, and now here was a man who moved like a dancer, in complete obedience to her smallest gesture.

  “Look,” she said. She pointed out the window. “See, a ship. A ship.”

  Mehuru had not seen the view from the front of the house before. He had seen nothing beyond the backyard but a small patch of dirt